Who Can Help You Market for Free?

You have a lot of potential marketing partners out there, some that you may already recognize. Others are just waiting for you to initiate. Here are top 10 allies you can get into your corner:

1)  Word of Mouth. One approach is to ask yourself, “Who else do my prospects patronize?” A local restaurant asked that and came up with an answer: beauty salons. So it offered two free dinners to all the salon owners within a two mile radius of the restaurant. The salon owners sampled the food, loved it and talked it up in their salons — the nerve center of the prospective customers’ community. It didn’t take long for the reservation list to be bursting at the seams. The cost of this breakthrough marketing: two free meals.

2) Viral Marketing. Viral marketing uses the communication networks of your site visitors or customers to spread the word about your own site exponentially. The classic example of guerrilla viral marketing is Hhotmail.com. It includes a theme line about its service at the end of every message sent out. So friends tell friends, who tell more friends, who tell even more friends. Its marketing copy only says “Get yoru free email at hotmail.” That’s it. Every outbound message had a subtly implied endorsement by the sender, so each user now becomes a company salesperson, and the message spreads organically…. like a virus.

3) Fusion Marketing Partners. You see a TV spot for what you think is Coke. Later you think it’s for McDonald’s. And at the end you realize that all along it was for the latest Disney movie. There’s a lot of fusion marketing going on, and most of it is among small businesses. Fusion marketing allows you to spread your marketing word while sharing the costs.

4) Cultivate Publicity Contacts. Being on a first-name basis with members of the media ranks in importance with having significant news for them to publish. Nearly 80 percent of press kits are tossed out before they’re read. But knowing the person to whom you send the kit will keep yours away from the dreaded wastebasket.

5) Establish a Referral Program. To get the most referrals, make it easy for people to give them to you. One technique is to make a call or send an email asking for the names of three people who might benefit from hearing from you. There is a way to FRAME your request for referrals that guarantees to TRIPLE your customer list…I’ll touch on this some other time. Remind me by asking me about it.

6) Solicit Testimonials/Success Stories. The best testimonials state the problem, use real words by real people, and state real numbers, along with real solutions to a problem. And how do you get these testimonials? First of all, EARN them. Then, all it takes is a simple request. You might even suggest a few things for them to say if they’re at a loss for words. Then display them prominently, on your website, as headlines, in special boxes, etc.

7) Publish Your Own Marketing Materials. Some of the marketing materials you can produce without outsourcing are newsletters, flyers, direct-mail letters, postcards, business cards, brochures, catalogs, gift certificates, signs, point of purchase materials, trade show materials, flipcharts, and proposals, just to name a few.

8) Create an Affiliate Program Affiliate marketing is one of the best innovations in the electronic world. It’s free marketing with the potential to attract traffic and generate sales. You offer a viable source of additional revenue to your affiliates, and in turn YOU get an extended reach based on affiliates who advertise/recommend your products and services to their individual audiences.

9)  Use PI and PO Advertising. Whether you use PI (per inquiry) or PO (per order) advertising, you pay zilch for the media out front; the media get their payment based on the number of inquiries or orders that you receive.

10) Share Your Tactics with Others. If you tell someone of a tactic that worked for you, chances are very good that person will relate a tactic that worked for her. Eventually you will collect an arsenal of tools and resources to take your marketing and sales to a whole new level. Everyone collaborates with a collaborator.

Next time I’ll talk about WHERE you can market for free.

And listen, let me know how I’m doing. What do you want to hear from you? What topics do you want me to cover? What questions do you want me to answer?

For more detailed (AND FREE) coaching, send an email to subscribe@ogandoassociates.com.

Til next time,

Coach Mo